


pineapple purple skies

by ohmygodwhy



Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [5]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied Relationships, Underage Drinking, me: yeah im done w riverdale...................anyway here's an 8k word serpent fic, that rival gang drag race plotline the writers forgot about after an episode or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 01:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: Sweet Pea seems to give up searching for the stupid remote and stomps into the kitchen to sit on the counter instead. It creaks ominously. Jughead, cautiously, prays for its life.“You got any more?” he asks, tilting his head at the cup of noodle on the counter.“No,” Jughead says. And then, because Sweet Pea’s eyeing it a little too hard, he holds it carefully to his chest, “You can’t have any.”





	pineapple purple skies

**Author's Note:**

> in a late night surge of manic energy i did the cleaning equivalent of a deep clean setting on the washing machine or one of those peel off face masks tht pull everything out of ur pores, wrote half of this, slept for 8 hours, saw love simon for the second time, and then wrote the rest of this over the next day and a half. depression who???
> 
> enjoy whatever this is. if u dont know who [ricky](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/post/172962849635/yall-remember-him-neither-does-ras) is idk what to tell you anymore. set whenever in s2 bc i fear no god and haven't actually watched an episode in months

 

Sweet Pea carries a fucking switchblade with him everywhere he goes. Jughead discovers this when he just pulls it out one day to pop the lid off a can of soda from the vending machine, which ok. He’d just given him this look when he saw Jughead watching, like he knew it was the coolest shit ever, which it wasn’t. He wondered how he got it through the metal detector; Jughead had to take his whole entire hat off before it stopped beeping at him.

Anyways, this was after he got the absolute shit kicked out of him by some obnoxiously tall kids he saw getting high in the hallway and leering at him in the cafeteria. He hadn’t gotten kicked that hard since the last year of middle school when he’d spent the last half of last period trying to stop his bloody nose without letting it clot in his throat and choke him to death. Kevin had found him, then. They don’t really talk, anymore, he and Kevin.

Nobody had found him, this time. He’d spent a solid twenty minutes trying to regain control of his body enough to swing his legs over the dumpster he’d gotten tossed into without getting nauseous and hitting his head on something. His laptop was mostly unharmed, he’d found, tucked securely into his bag. His hearing aid hadn’t been hit or knocked out. Nothing was broken, save his split lip and his dignity. And maybe his nose, he wasn’t sure. It had been broken before, anyways, so it didn’t matter all that much.

As far as ass whoopings went, it was in his top ten. Maybe top five, if he was being generous, just because he thought one of the Ghoulies was on the soccer team—same one who slashed the football captain’s car tires last week. Nobody was surprised, because everyone thinks he’s just a sociopath. Packed a hell of a kick, either way.

The day after the next, the one after he came and sat at Toni’s table at lunch, the Ghoulies who’d kicked the shit out of him came to first period late, looking like they’d been hit by a truck. Soccer player guy had the beginnings of what looked like two solid black eyes. Another one’s shirt sleeve was sliced open, which maybe made him less surprised when Sweet Pea popped his can open with a fucking switchblade. Especially when Jughead glanced back at him to see him looking very pleased with himself, and also smug at Jughead’s surprise. Jughead’d had a friend or two get a bully in trouble with a teacher or something, but never had anyone other than Archie punch back for him.

He didn’t know whether he was vaguely satisfied, or if he should feel bad about feeling vaguely satisfied. If it was bad of him.

Either way, the Ghoulies don’t bother him again, and Sweet Pea pulls his dumb switchblade out to pop a can of soda because he’s ridiculous. He also tells Jughead he looks like shit with a black eye, and that he was dumb not to just sit with them before. Jughead tells him to fuck off.

Tells him to fuck off again when he comes by just to talk shit about Archie for the thirtieth time in a row.

“I get it,” Jughead says, even though he can hardly believe Archie pulled out a gun, didn’t believe he posted that video till he saw it for himself, “I get it. But he didn’t know what he was doing, okay?”

Sweet Pea scoffs, “He seemed to know exactly what he was packing. Walking around like he owned the damn place.”

“I don’t even know where he got a gun. Like, are you sure it was a gun?”

Sweet Pea makes this face like he’s talking to hhs biggest idiot in the world, “I’m pretty sure I know what a gun looks like.”

“Was it like, actually real?”

“He was waving it around like it was. Didn’t look like a toy to me.”

Jughead is quiet for a moment, biting his lip. He can’t connect to two images in his mind—the Archie he knows and the Archie vandalizing a building and starting a vigilante gang and pulling out a gun. Where the hell would he have gotten a gun? Reggie has a lowkey drug hookup, but Jughead doubts he would be stupid enough to hand out guns. Dilton, maybe. Yeah, he could see that. He’s the one who shot a gun the day Jason died, and that was plenty real.

“I just,” he starts, and stops, because this is Sweet Pea he’s talking to and he still doesn’t quite know him yet, “I don’t get it.”

Sweet Pea frowns, but doesn’t scoff this time, “There’s not very much to get. Your friend is a Northside asshole who started shit for no reason. Sorry if it’s a wake up call or whatever, but like, what were you expecting?”

Jughead scowls, glancing up from the lit homework he’d been trying to do before Sweet Pea stomped into the trailer, “Archie’s not like that,” he says.

“They’re all like that.”

“Archie isn’t.”

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, “Whatever. What the hell do you owe him, anyways?”

A lot, he doesn’t say. More than he can ever pay back.

“Why’re you so obsessed with him?” He says instead, pitching his voice; could be a joke, depending on how Sweet Pea takes it. “You got a crush?”

Sweet Pea tells him to fuck off this time. Then, he eats all the Cheez-Its Jughead has left, right in front of him, just to be a dick. Jughead makes a note to lock his door next time.

(He doesn’t.)

 

Archie doesn’t go to Pop’s anymore. Or at least, he avoids it. It’s hard to stay too far away when it’s in pretty much the center of town, but he does his best. The first time Jughead had mentioned it after The Incident, Archie had gotten this look on his face that Jughead decided he never wanted to see again. He tried not to mention it much after that.

They meet up in other places to talk, sometimes. It’s a McDonald’s this time, the only mainstream food chain they have in the town. There’s hardly anyone here, this early in the morning on a Sunday. It seems like Archie is always awake, lately.

“How’s your dad?” Jughead asks around a fry.  
  
“He’s alright,” Archie answers, “Can’t walk yet, but he can sit up by himself. You should come by and see him, he’s been asking about you.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“How’s your new school?”  
  
Jughead thinks about the dumpster he crawled out of and Sweet Pea’s stupid switchblade. A fucking nightmare, is his first thought. Not as bad as he thought it would be, is the second.  
  
“It’s alright,” he settles on, “It’s not as high end as RD high, but there’s a library.”  
  
“You makin any friends?”  
  
“First of all, you sound like your dad. But… yeah, I guess so.”

He doesn’t sound very confident, and he can see Archie pick up on it, but he doesn’t push. Normally he’d ask a few more times, maybe prod a little harder in that blunt way of his, but he doesn’t this time, and Jughead hates how he notices.  
  
There’s a lull, so he says, “How’s your weird gang thing going, by the way?”  
  
“It uh, it disbanded.”  
  
“Really? That was quick.”  
  
“Yeah, not everyone loved the idea.”  
  
“I can’t imagine why.” He’s trying for a smile, but Archie doesn’t smile back.  
  
“I was just trying to help,” he says, “What were you doing? What was anyone doing?”  
  
“Chill out, Arch. I’m not saying you weren’t trying to help—I’m just saying it wasn’t the best tactic.”  
  
“What would you have done?”  
  
“Not post a threatening video that looked like the beginning of a weird BDSM scene.”  
  
“Fuck off, Jug.”  
  
“I’m just saying,” he interrupts, “You gotta be more careful about this shit. Some people are always looking for a chance to fight.”  
  
“That’s what you get on the Southside I guess.”  
  
“I’m talking about both sides,” Jughead says, vaguely fed up and not sure why, “Some of your bulldogs were having too much fun. Dilton fuckin Doiley, too. Guy stabbed himself.”  
  
“They were the ones who came and started it.”  
  
“Who crossed the border first, though? They didn’t come with guns, at least.”  
  
“Sorry I was tryna protect myself.”  
  
Jughead bites his tongue so he didn’t say something stupid. He doesn’t want to ruin this, too.  
  
“Whatever. I’m glad your rich kid gang disbanded. Shit’s dangerous.”

They change topics, go back and forth for a few more minutes, before Archie says he should probably get going. They say their goodbyes, and Jughead leaves the diner feeling off-kilter and disappointed.

(“Hey Jones,” Ricky says later, catching him on the way home and poking his head out of his truck, “Me n’ Toni are going out for slushies. You wanna come?”

Jughead thinks about Archie, and Sweet Pea, and how he didn’t have enough money to get a McDonald’s milkshake, and says, “Sure.”

Ricky smiles at him, and Jughead tries to remember what exactly—other the brass on Ricky’s knuckles when he and Tall Boy beat up a man and dragged him to the trailer as proof—is so dangerous about making friends with these people.)

 

As it turns out, Sweet Pea also owns some nice, solid brass knuckles, too. As the metal makes contact with his face, he wonders if it’s a Serpent thing. He thinks Toni could pack a mean punch with or without the extra boost—and watching her mouth twitch into a smile when he touches his face, jerks back, and immediately takes a shot someone offers him, he doesn’t think he ever wants to find out. Sweet Pea is enough for him. Sweet Pea drags him out of his trailer and down to the bar to celebrate his initiation, like it wasn’t inevitable, like the guy hadn’t tried to break his face twenty minutes ago. Sweet Pea’s hand was very warm, and he held on longer than he had to, keeping Jughead on his feet while he regained his footing.

“I think he was rooting for you, to be honest,” Toni says, and he shakes his head and takes another shot but he knows she’s probably right. Sweet Pea is weird like that, he’s noticed. He says what he thinks but only when it’s loud and brash and angry; he looks at Fangs like he’s the actual sun and holds Jughead up steady with the hand he punched him with; he could feel the cool metal against his palm, keeping his racing pulse in check.

Toni kisses him in his trailer afterwards, and then Sweet Pea finds him the back room of the bar and kisses him, too, which yeah, okay. He doesn’t think he’s quite on Fangs level, wonders why the asshole isn’t kissing him instead, but alright. He’s drunk and Sweet Pea’s really fucking tall and that’s fine. He’s done weirder shit.

When he was ten years old, he spent three months in the Riverdale Detention Center for ‘trying to burn the elementary school down’. He wasn’t actually trying to burn anything down, but nobody had been interested in listening to him. The teacher who’d found him lighting matches in the bathroom had gripped his shoulder so tight he thought he must’ve left marks.

When he was placed in front of the judge, it was the briefest of once-overs, his last name familiar and on record, and he was off.

“Jughead Jones,” the man had said when he called him to the stand, reading his nickname off of whatever school record, “that’s a weird fuckin name.”

“That’s a weird fuckin mustache,” he’d shot back on impulse.

The man had scowled, “Yeah, you’re Jones’ kid.”

“Cut him some slack,” someone else has said; a security guard, maybe, mouth tilted up, “His dad got mouthy when he was scared, too.”

Jughead almost told them: I’m not scared, I refuse to be scared. But that would be lying and you know, the whole _I promise to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth_ thing. He ground his teeth together and bit his tongue. His dad only became FP after his first stint back in eighth grade; the judge on duty had given up on pronouncing any part of his name. _The one with an F and a P,_ he had said, and it had stuck. Fangs got his name after he bit the sheriff. Toni got to keep hers because she was little and quiet. Jughead didn’t want anything worse than what he already had.

The first day he’d sat down to lunch, an older boy with a mean frown had sat down across from him and told Jughead to give him his damn pudding. When Jughead had told him to get his own damn pudding, the boy had punched him. Which. Over dramatic, but it got his point across.

It also got the two of them in detention for three days—detention within detention, he’d thought, arms folded on the table. Very meta. Like that Wes Craven movie he watched at the drive-in last month, the one where the actress plays herself and Freddy Krueger’s actor plays himself _and_ Freddy Krueger coming to the real world from the original movies, or something. He’d said this, to the teacher in charge, and she’d told him to be quiet and tell it to someone else later.

There had been another older kid—a girl this time—older than the pudding kid but young enough that she was still in here. She’d turned around where she was sitting at the row in front of him, and said, “That was pretty good.”

“Thank you,” Jughead had said.

“Aren’t you a little young to be watching Wes fucking Craven?”

He had shrugged, “I dunno. My mom loves them.”

“I like your mom.” And then, “What’re you in for?”

“Well, I guess I tried to burn down my school.”

“Arson,” she’d said appreciatively, “How old are you, like ten?”

"Yeah.”  
  
“Damn. You are the most metal ten year old I’ve ever met. What’s your name?” She had asked, sticking a hand out.  
  
Cautiously, Jughead took it, “Jughead Jones.”  
  
“Jughead,” the kid repeated, “Your parents call you that?”  
  
“One of ‘em.”  
  
“Is it your dad?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Is your dad an asshole?”  
  
He took a moment to consider, “Yeah.”  
  
“Jughead,” she said again, like she was tasting it, “Don’t that mean you’re slow?”  
  
Jughead shrugged, thought he might’ve heard his mom yelling at his dad the first time he said it, “Maybe the way my dad used to use it. My friend doesn’t use it that way, though.”  
  
“How does your friend use it?”  
  
Jughead just tapped on his hat, still pulled down over his ears. The girl smiled.

“That’s funny, I like that.” She had said, and then the teacher yelled at her to sit in her seat like it was made to and to stop running her mouth.

Now, thinking about it curled up on the bed in the trailer after some saint drove his drunk ass home, he wonders where the girl is now. He thinks that Toni reminds him of her. Sweet Pea mostly reminds him of the kid who’d punched him for his fucking pudding.

 

“Where’s your remote?” Sweet Pea asks from the tiny living room.

Jughead frowns, pulls the spoon out of his mouth to say, “On the coffee table?” and then puts it back into his mouth because he needs both hands to pour the water into his cup of noodles without spilling it everywhere.

“It’s not on the coffee table.”

Jughead huffs, and puts the spoon on the counter instead. “On the couch?”

“Not on the couch”.

“Check under the cushions, then.”

A moment, Jughead can hear him shuffling around, “It’s not under the cushions.”

“Check the fucking floor then, I don’t know.”

“I’m not shoving my hand under your nasty ass couch.”

“Well, I’m not gonna do it for you—ow, _shit_ ,” he breathes, sticking his thumb in his mouth.

“You burned yourself didn’t you?” Sweet Pea calls, sounding all full of himself.

“No.” Jughead shoots back, “Shut up.”

“I told you just sticking it in the microwave is easier.”

“I didn’t disagree with you,” he grumbles, putting a plate over the cup to let the noodles steep, “I just wanted to try doing it the right way for once in my life.”

“The long way, you mean.”

“It’s what the directions actually tell you to do.”

“Fuck the directions,” Sweet Pea says, like he’s actually angry about it, “Where the fuck is your stupid remote?”

Jughead doesn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes, cause Sweet Pea can’t actually see him. If he could, it would just rile him up more and Jughead’s noodles would probably get cold because he’d have to argue with him until the asshole tired himself out about it. He knows he’s not actually mad about the TV remote or the goddamn ramen directions. He doesn’t know what he’s mad about yet, but he’s sure he’ll find out whether he wants to or not.

Sweet Pea seems to give up searching for the stupid remote and stomps into the kitchen to sit on the counter instead. It creaks ominously. Jughead, cautiously, prays for its life.

“You got any more?” he asks, tilting his head at the cup of noodle on the counter.

“No,” Jughead says. And then, because Sweet Pea’s eyeing it a little too hard, he holds it carefully to his chest, “You can’t have any.”

Sweet Pea frowns, “Why not?”

“Because I bought it?”

“For twenty five cents.”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, and takes a big bite.

“Twenty five cents,” Sweet Pea repeats. “Don’t be fucking stingy.”

“Don’t be fucking rude,” Jughead shoots back, “I know you have a quarter, go buy some yourself.”

Sweet Pea sighs dramatically, leaning back against the cabinets. “They’re all out at Mike’s.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow,“What, you don’t wanna go to the rich kid store? It’s probably the same price.”

Sweet Pea scowls. “Fuck no. My back still hurts.”

 _Oh,_ Jughead thinks, connecting the dots. He’s still pissed about the raid.

“That was like a week ago.”

“Yeah, and my back still hurts. You ever slept on the floor?”

He knows that Sweet Pea already knows the answer to that, but he says “Yeah,” anyways.

Sweet Pea frowns for a long moment, like he’s deciding whether or not to be mad, and what to be mad about.

“You hear they got community service?” He decides on.

Jughead doesn’t have to ask who they are, but, “I… did not know that, actually,” he admits.

Sweet Pea pounces on that moment of hesitation. “Your Northside boyfriend didn’t tell you?”

“Archie’s not my boyfriend.”

“You talk about him like he is.”

“Like you talk about Fangs?”

“Hey, fuck you,” Sweet Pea says. They’ve had this conversation before in various ways; by now, Jughead knows what buttons to push and how hard, so he doesn’t think Sweet Pea’s truly pissed off yet. Hopefully. He takes another bite of his ramen.

“Community service,” Sweet Pea repeats, jumping back to his previous point. “We got locked up all night.”

Jughead frowns around his spoon, “What kinda community service?”

“Picking up trash or something, I dunno. They were the ones doing the drugs. I wouldn’t touch that shit with a stick.”

“And we all know how much you like poking things with sticks,” Jughead adds. “But. Yeah, that’s kinda dumb.”

“ _Kinda_. And then that shit your boyfriend pulled—who knows what the asshole you were racing’s gonna do when he gets bail.”

“You don’t know if he’ll get bail or not,” Jughead says, even though he knows one hundred percent that Malachai will be out in at least a month.

“He’ll get bail,” Sweet Pea insists, leaning forward and slapping a hand down on the counter; there’s a cracking sound, but nothing caves in yet, so Jughead is hopeful, “And you know who he’s gonna come after when he does.”

The noodles are lukewarm and suddenly flavorless; there’s this sinking feeling in his chest that he’s been trying his very best to push way way in the back of his rib cage. Fucking Sweet Pea.

“Look,” he says, “I’ll—deal with whatever shit happens, okay? I’m the one he thinks called the cops, anyways.”

Somehow, that makes Sweet Pea scowl even more. He has a mouth made for it, he thinks absently, setting his cup down; it’s half finished, but he’s not hungry anymore.

“No offense, but you aren’t exactly tough shit, Jones.”

Jughead just shrugs; he’s tired, and his head is starting to hurt, and he was planning on doing his stupid lit reading before Sweet Pea stomped his way in because he forgot to lock the damn door again.

“He’s gonna come for you, which means he’s gonna come for us.”

“I’m sorry, _Jesus_. I said I’ll deal with it, okay?”

Sweet Pea slides off the counter, his heavy shoes against the floor, and grabs at his cup of noodle. Jughead doesn’t try to stop him this time. “Your boyfriend’s a dumbass,” he says, “Like, is he stupid? What did he think would happen?”

“He thought Malachai would go to prison and that would be the end of it.”

“Prison ain’t the end of shit.”

“Yeah,” he says, “I know.”

Sweet Pea takes a bite and shakes his head. “Community service. That Blossom girl had the time of her life at the race, though.”

“Who, Cheryl?”

“I guess. Toni keeps talking about her.”

“Huh,” Jughead says, and that’s really all he has to say about it. He sighs, listens to Sweet Pea scrape at the bottom of the styrofoam with the plastic fork.

“You woulda won, you know,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“If one of us was driving with you,” Sweet Pea says, “You woulda won.” Jughead shrugs, and Sweet Pea scoffs, “ _‘_ I’ll deal with it on my own’,” he mocks, “You’re a dumbass, too.”

That, inexplicably, warms something in Jughead’s tired little heart. Standing in his kitchen and eating his food and talking shit.

“Yeah,” he says, “I know.”

Fucking Sweet Pea.

 

Jughead picks up shifts at Mike’s Grocery a few nights a week because Julian’s mom is a real bad kind of sick and hospital bills are the devil’s work and Julian lives a few trailers down from him and used to help him with chemistry in exchange for Jughead reading over his essays, and they’re all doing a little extra to pitch in because despite the drug shit Penny’s probably peddling on the low and all their stupid brass knuckles, that’s just what they do. He knows the manager pretty well—used to slide him an extra ten over the counter so he could actually buy the beer his dad would send him out to get—so he gives him the shifts without much hassle. Ricky’s been working there since freshman year, so he gives him a ride over when their shifts overlap.

Ricky’s nice. He likes Ricky, even though Ricky likes Hot Dog way too much and came over during his Initiation just to spend some quality time on the couch petting that stupid, sheddy little dog. Ricky stole his fries the first day in the cafeteria and then laughed at his joke and then showed up the trailer later (he also helped beat a man half to death for info he didn’t have, but everybody has those days), so he likes Ricky.

“You used to work at the Drive-In, right?” Ricky asks one night on their way back from Mike’s.

“Uh, yeah,” Jughead answers, glancing over at him from the passenger’s seat. “Why?”

Ricky shrugs. “I was just thinkin’ about it earlier. I used to see you around sometimes. You always came with that Red Circle guy before he went batshit, and then you didn’t, and then it closed.”

Jughead doesn’t know whether he wants to smile or feel very sad. He decides he doesn’t want to be very sad at the moment. “I fought for that stupid place,” he says. “Didn’t work.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.”

“Heard a few of you were hired to fuck around and lower the value of the land, or something.”

Ricky shrugs again, looking vaguely apologetic. “To be fair, I just came for the movies. Used to go all the time when I was little, before money got tight.”

“Me and my sister used to hide in the back of the truck so we didn’t have to pay for all of us,” Jughead admits.

Ricky laughs a little, “I used to do the same shit. My mom didn’t like it, she was always afraid we’d get caught, but my dad always said it’d be a waste to buy three whole tickets.”

“Kids were only like one fifty,” Jughead points out.

“Adults were almost eight. That’s like sixteen bucks for two people.”

“Family fun night on Tuesdays,” Jughead counters lightly, “And three dollar classic horror every other Friday.”

“Turned into every single Friday when you worked there.”

Jughead shrugs, unapologetic. “The lady who owned the place didn’t care much what I played as long as I made money and didn’t let people steal shit from the concessions counter.”

“I swiped a few pretzels, if I’m being honest,” Ricky admits.

“That was _you?_ ” Jughead turns in his seat, “Those pretzels were shit, they hardly ever got stolen.”

“I loved those damn things. They were salty as hell but the butter balanced it out—”

“More grease than butter.”

Ricky ignores him, “And they were cheap as hell too.”

“You _stole_ them, asshole.”

“Sometimes I payed! They were just so good,” Ricky sighs, “They held a special place in my heart, like pizza sticks they used to serve for lunch in school.”

Jughead grins, “Those were the shit,” he agrees, “Everyone would try to sneak back into line to get seconds.”

“We used to barter for them like poker chips. Sweet Pea got into a fight over them one time.”

“Sweet Pea gets into fights over everything,” Jughead points out, “The first time I saw him he got all pissed and just walked out of class.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t like lit very much.”

“It’s cause he never reads the homework, and then the teacher calls him out about it.”

“Mr Richards is a dick,” Ricky says, “He doesn’t like Sweets very much. Don’t really know why.”

“Huh,” Jughead says, falling silent for a moment. The radio is on, some vaguely eighties song playing quietly. Maybe early nineties. He can’t always tell. “He has dumb hair anyways.”

“Sweet Pea or Mr Richards?”

Jughead huffs a laugh, “Mr Richards. I’d say Sweet Pea, but I know he takes forever to do it every morning, and I respect that.”

“He’s very serious about his style,” Ricky agrees.

“So are you, Mister Fifties Greaser Hair.”

“Shut up,” Ricky says, but he sound more amused than offended; it’s a nice change of pace from Sweet Pea’s hair trigger temper, and it puts Jughead at ease, “All you own is a bunch of different jackets and like, three shirts.”

“I own four shirts, thanks.”

Ricky just shakes his head a little. “Your style is like… stylishly homeless.”

“That’s just mean. I was literally homeless like, twice.”

“That’s fair,” Ricky concedes. “But you aren’t living in a closet anymore.”

“I dunno, I’m not exactly living with any kinda guardian. I don’t actually own the trailer.”

Ricky glances over at him, this confused little look on his face, “You do realize that if your social worker or whatever kicks you out of the trailer, you can come stay with one of us, right?” he says, like Jughead would be stupid to not realize that, “Well, except for Toni. Her uncle locks _her_ out half the time.”

“For real?” Jughead asks dubiously, “I thought your mom hated all of us. And I doubt Sweet Pea would let me sleep on his couch.”

“She doesn’t hate any of you, she just doesn’t want any shady drug shit in her house. She’d let you crash for a few nights. Also,” Ricky adds mouth tilting up a bit, “Sweet Pea kinda owes you there— plus, his brother’s super nice.”

“He has a brother?” Jughead asks, curious despite himself.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you haven’t met him yet. He joined up when Sweets was a kid, I think,” Ricky explains, “He has a job, so he hasn’t been around in a while.”

“Where’s he work?”

“Some factory outside of town. Don’t know what it’s for, but it pays rent, I guess.”

“I guess,” Jughead agrees, cause he’s still kinda processing. He doesn’t know why, but he never really pictured Sweet Pea having siblings. He can see him with an older brother, though. He has that die hard kind of Serpent mentality that makes sense if you have a sibling in with you. Vaguely, he’s glad his sister didn’t stick around long enough to see him join a gang.

“Speaking of crashing,” Ricky says after a few minutes, “Can I crash at your place tonight?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jughead says. Some of the Ghoulies at school have been stirring up trouble, making themselves known, and he’s been on edge about it; he knows that they know where he lives, and they’ve already beat the shit out of him once before. He’s glad for the company. He still asks why, to be inconspicuous about it.

Ricky shrugs for the thirtieth time, because he’s a responsible driver who doesn’t take his hands off the wheel, “Just don’t feel like going home tonight. It’s my dad’s week.”

Jughead doesn’t know much about Ricky’s dad. He doesn’t wanna press, though, so he just accepts the answer and nods.

“Long as you don’t eat my ramen, stay as long as you want.”

Ricky smiles. He doesn’t complain about anything once, even when they still can’t find that stupid remote.

 

He ends up taking Ricky up on his offer—well, his offering of an offer that someone would hypothetically give—sooner than he thought he would.

Malachai got out of prison, is the thing. The other thing is, as mentioned before, he knows exactly where Jughead lives. He also knows the bar, and at this point, because he and Tall Boy aren’t on the best of terms, Jughead isn’t sure whether or not he would sell him out if it came down to it, so it’s a no-go there, too. The other thing is he doesn’t know exactly where he stands with Archie right now after the drag race thing and the few whispered arguments they’ve had, but he knows that he doesn’t want to get the Andrews into any more trouble than they’re already in. So. Not staying there again, no matter how much he’d like to drag a mattress into Archie’s room and talk until they both fall asleep and all that shit they did when he was living with them. It just doesn’t fit.

Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, Sweet Pea’s the first one to offer.

When Jughead asks why, he says, “My brother has the night shift right now, so he’s gonna be out for most of the night. ‘Sides, I told you, you aren’t exactly tough shit.”

Still, he’s hesitant. “You don’t want them to find out where you guys live.”

“They won’t,” Sweet Pea says, sounding more confident about it than Jughead could ever hope to be, “And if they do, you’re not tough shit, but I’ve got a crowbar.”

“Why the fuck do you have a _crowbar_? No, you know what? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.”

“Pussy,” Sweet Pea says, but doesn’t push it. Jughead just doesn’t like the idea of a crowbar slamming against something soft and breakable, like a person.

Eventually (he doesn’t actually take more than a minute or so to decide) he accepts the offer. He packs a few clothes and his school shit and drives the motorcycle over because his dad would murder him on the spot if he let that damn thing get fucked up.

The apartment is a little thing, tucked away on the second story of the complex a few blocks away from the bar. He checks the number on the door twice, because his two biggest fears are selecting everything in a google doc and then accidentally pressing cut instead of copy, and knocking on the wrong apartment door. Luckily for him, and he truly never thought he would say this, Sweet Pea swings the door open.

“Took you long enough,” he says, but he seems more relieved than annoyed, “Almost thought you bit it on the way over.”

“Thanks for the confidence,” he says, also more relieved than annoyed. Thank fuck it was the right door.

His brother really is nice, he decides. He’s a little rough-looking, and definitely has that old school biker look that Sweet Pea tries to copy. His tattoo is on his upper arm, and he pulls a different jacket over it before he leaves for work. Before that, though, he tells Jughead he can wait at the table and do whatever because _he’s the guest,_ he says pointedly, before Sweet Pea can bitch about it. Jughead skims briefly over the book they’re writing an essay on in class right now, and listens to the sound of dinner being made.

It’s just Boyardee, but it’s something other than cup of noodle, so Jughead’s not complaining. He eats his bowl slowly, trying to savor it, and listens to Sweet Pea’s brother complain about the assholes at work and how they keep taking his shifts.

“Sound like real pieces of work,” Jughead says around his spoon.

“Don’t even get me fuckin’ started on the manager,” he says, and Jughead can see where Sweet Pea gets his dramatics from. It’s kinda funny when Sweet Pea tells him to chill out and eat his dinner, because at least three people have used that exact line on him.

“You can’t tell me to do shit,” his brother says, more teasing than anything, “I’m older than you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m taller than you,” Sweet Pea shoots back. 

“I know, skyscraper lookin' ass.”

“At least I’m not a twenty-one-year-old five ten motherfucker.”

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” his brother says, “You know what, flag pole? Bell tower? Empire State Building? You’re gonna do the dishes tonight.”

Sweet Pea makes an offended noise, “I have an essay to write!”

“Oh so _now_ you care about your essay,” he says, pushing his chair back and standing up.

“You’re the one who wants me to get those good grades,” Sweet Pea argues.

“Damn right I do,” he agrees, tossing his bowl into the sink, pulling his jacket on, “Go do your fuckin homework. Jones, make sure he does his fuckin homework, okay?”

Sure,” Jughead says, smiling a little. The whole thing reminds him of arguing with Archie over stupid shit like who’s turn it was to decide whether or not to keep the window open overnight or whether Uncrustables technically fall into the ravioli category (they do; Jughead’s done Research). Fred telling Archie to get his head out of his musical clouds and do his calc homework. So familiar something in him aches.

There must be some look on his face, because once his brother is gone, Sweet Pea throws a pillow at him. It hits him square in the face. Jughead throws it back.

“He locked the door,” Sweet Pea says, choosing to take his silence as worry, “We got a deadbolt and everything. Plus a crowbar.”

“Why the fuck—” he starts again, and stops before he can ask a second time. He really truly does not want to know.

“Found it at the quarry,” Sweet Pea answers anyways.

“So you brought it _home?”_

“I washed it first,” he says, like that makes it any better. Jughead prays for him, too. And himself, while he’s at it. With his whole entire heart, he does not want to see Sweet Pea hit somebody with a crowbar.

“Anyway,” he says, “Do your fuckin homework.”

Sweet Pea scowls at him, “I’m pissed that he likes you.”

“He likes me?” Jughead asks, surprised.

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea grumbles, “Shoulda made you stay with Scott or something.”

But he flops onto the couch and pulls out a pencil anyways, so Jughead counts it as a win. Besides, he thinks, Sweet Pea’s big brother likes him.

 

“Hey,” Archie says in greeting, back against what’s quickly becoming their regular McDonald’s booth, “Where’ve you been?”

“What d’you mean?” Jughead asks, sliding into the seat across from him.

Archie shrugs, “I haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“Yeah, we go to different schools, now, remember?” again, he’s trying for a smile, but again, it doesn’t work.

“No, I mean like, at your trailer. You’re never around when I check.”

Jughead’s heart this weird little thing where it feels like he’s been dropped from several feet in the air, “You’ve been going to the trailer?”

“Yeah,” Archie says, not seeming to register the urgency in his voice.

“You shouldn’t hang around there anymore.”

“Why not?” Archie frowns, “Is it a Serpent thing?”

“No, it’s just—“

Archie gasps, “Are you peddling drugs?”

“Are you fifty? Who says _peddling_?”

“Is that a yes?”

“ _No_ it’s not a yes, god.”

“But it is a Serpent thing?”

“Kind of?” Jughead shrugs, pushing a fry around on his tray, “I don’t know, it’s kinda—complicated.”

Archie doesn’t look impressed. “It’s totally a drug thing, isn’t it.”

“It’s not a drug thing,” Jughead repeats, exasperated, “What is with you and drugs?”

“Um, the shit that happened at Veronica’s party?”

“You mean the shit you tripped on and then got community service for?” Jughead takes a piece of Archie’s hashbrown, “The Serpents don’t deal hard shit like that.”

“But they do sell weed, though.”

“Everyone sells weed,” Jughead says. Archie looks pleased with himself anyways. “I can’t believe you did actual, real life, scary drugs.”

Archie looks decidedly uncomfortable, “I didn’t _want_ to,” he says, “I mean, I did, but I also— it was, peer pressure, y’know?”

Jughead frowns. “You gotta stop letting yourself be pressured into shit,” he says. First the music teacher from hell, he doesn’t say, now this. “At least your vigilante gang was entirely your own decision.”

Archie flushes, “God, are you ever gonna shut up about that?”

“Nope,” Jughead grins.

“I thought it was a good idea.”

“You should start consulting with others about your ‘good ideas’ before you actually do them,” and then, because he’d told Ricky (who was way nicer about it than Sweet Pea) he’d at least try to talk with Archie about this, “Like that stuff you pulled at the drag race.”

Archie actually winces a little bit, apologetic. “I really was trying to help,” he says.

Jughead sighs, rubbing at his eyes, “Yeah, I know. It just—the Sheriff? The _Sheriff_ , Archie?”

“I _know_ , okay?” god, but he sounds embarrassed; how the hell is Jughead supposed to stay mad at him? “I just thought— I don’t know, that it would get him out of the way and nobody would have to get hurt.”

“I woulda won,” Jughead says, sounding so remarkably like Sweet Pea that he almost has to stop and think long and hard about how much time he’s been spending with him.

Archie doesn’t look convinced—which, thanks, Archie—but he doesn’t say anything about it. “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I know,” Jughead says again.

“It kinda worked though, didn’t it?” Archie offers tentatively, “I mean, he’s in prison now.”

“He… kinda got out last week,” Jughead admits; he’d been wanting to avoid this part of the conversation, but he can never really lie to Archie anyways.

Archie suddenly looks very afraid, “What, already?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, feeling very very tired, “He’s literally the leader of a gang that sells hard shit to rich teenagers; he has money. And the only concrete thing they had on him was the drag race. Once the legal shit was out of the way, he made bail.”

“Shit,” Archie says quietly. “Are you—are you okay? Like, are you alright?”

Jughead manages a small smile, “Yeah, I’m good. I been staying at Sweet Pea’s for a few days or so.”

Archie frowns a little at the mention, “That kid who pulled a knife on me?”

“The one you pulled a gun on, yeah,” Jughead points out, and Archie quickly drops it.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I dunno,” he says, “We’ll figure it out.”

“Do you wanna… “ he trails off, but Jughead shakes his head.

“Don’t wanna cause trouble for your dad. I’ve put him through enough shit.”

“He’d be happy to have you over for a night or two. You haven’t made breakfast in awhile, I think he misses you.”

Jughead ignores the feeling in his chest, and says, “He just misses my pancakes.”

Archie, for all his faults, knows what a dismissal sound like. Plus, Jughead thinks, he’s probably not in much hurry to get his dad involved in any gang shit, either.

 

They eventually work out some kind of deal that Jughead isn’t a part of making, because _‘he looked like he wanted to eat you the first time he saw you,’_ Toni had told him, _‘and that was before you pissed him off.’_ Which Jughead is fine with, honestly. He had to chase a couple of those tall kids who kicked the shit out of him that one time off of his porch with his dad’s old baseball bat a few nights after the race, and that was about as much action as he wanted to have. He is fine sitting this one out.

Toni sits it out with him, the two of them in the back of Ricky’s truck, parked behind the bar.

“Apparently,” Toni says over the faint yelling and the sound of her filing her nails, “They’ve been giving Penny a lot of trouble about the whole thing.”

“Why her?” He asks, only half-interested. He’d kind of lost all confidence or trust in her after the whole surprise drug boy thing. Fuck her for proving Archie right and then getting him hooked in it too. (Fuck him for involving Archie in the first place.)

“Apparently,” she says again, “they took a chance lettin’ her in on the JJ business. Thought she could keep everyone in check, including you.”

Jughead snorts, still not looking up from his stupid lit homework. No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t find it interesting. Sweet Pea really is getting to him. “Sucks.”

“Yeah,” Toni laughs. “You're kinda great at getting people pissed at you.”

“It’s one of my many talents,” he agrees. “I feel the need to say it wasn’t my fault Archie called the cops.”

“I know,” Toni says, “I get it. Mostly they’re just mad you let a Northside kid in on it when it wasn’t his race to begin with.”

Jughead just shrugs. “Yeah, I got that by now. Won’t happen again.”

Toni snorts this time, elbows him a little. “You're all kinds of trouble, Jones, I swear to god.”

“Least I don’t take home random crowbars I find lying around.”

Toni laughs, “I told Sweet Pea to leave it there.”

“Well, it made me feel safer,” he says, only half a joke.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, “They’ll figure something out.”

They do, eventually, but it takes long enough that he’s finished all his stupid lit reading by the time Fangs walks out and says “Turns out you’re not dying today.”

“Thank god,” Jughead says, “I’m still not done with my essay.”

 

A few days before FP’s official trial is supposed to happen, and Jughead can’t sit still for shit.

If he’s being honest, if he’s being one hundred percent true to himself, the odds are not exactly stacked in their favor. Like, sure, he did it to protect his kid and all that, but FP helped cover up a murder—that he had no part in, and didn’t know was even a thing that was gonna happen, but still put a body into a freezer and then dumped it in the lake. (How the little detail that he was frozen and then thawed escaped the autopsy report is beyond him, but he thinks it might’ve had something to do with Mister Secret Drug Cartel).

Does he want his dad to go to prison? Absolutely not. Is he being honest with himself and open to the real possibility that his dad might be going to prison for the next ten years of his life? Also absolutely not.

The point is, he’s stressed, and he can’t sit still, but there’s nothing productive for him to be doing because he stressed himself into doing all of his homework and then finishing the stupid lit book and his entire essay. Can’t watch TV because he still can’t find the damn remote. He’s considering either running to the library to distract himself or taking like three Nyquils and calling it a day, when there’s a knock on the door, and then Sweet Pea just walks inside because that’s just what he does at this point.

“Hey,” he says, instead of getting annoyed like he would have a few months ago.

“Hey,” Toni says, peeking out from behind the skyscraper in front of her. And hey, Fangs is here, too. And also Ricky, immediately sitting on the couch, which is a lot of people for a living room this small.

“What’s up?” he asks, vaguely suspicious.

“So, because your dad’s getting out soon,” Ricky starts.

“Since when?”

“Since there’s the trial in a few days.”

“Which mean that he’s gonna get out soon,” Toni adds, like she’s daring him to disagree.

“Yeah, exactly,” Ricky says, “So we thought we’d help you out.”

“With what?”

“This place is a mess,” Toni says frankly.

“Is this an intervention?” Jughead asks, only half joking.

“It’s a ‘get your shit together’ meeting,” Sweet Pea says.

“So, an intervention.”

“If that’s the word you wanna use, sure.”

Jughead opens his mouth to ask Sweet Pea what the hell else he would call it, but Toni interrupts, “All I’m saying is that your couch looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since before you were born.”

That’s fair, Jughead thinks, and refrains from saying that he kind of agrees.

“My dad wasn’t exactly the house-cleaning type,” he admits.

“Yeah, no shit.” Sweet Pea says.

Jughead sighs, long and hard. He’s tired. “I’ll—get to it eventually. God only knows what he has in the closet.”

“No,” Toni says, “We’re doing this now.”

“We?” he repeats, raising an eyebrow.

Toni raises one right back. “We brought bleach,” she says.

“And dusters,” Fangs says helpfully, holding up a duster. It’s very dirty, but it’s more than Jughead has.

He glances skeptically at Sweet Pea, who shrugs and says, “We’re putting up the tree here this year. It should at least look nice.”

“The tree?” Jughead asks, “What fucking tree are you bringing into a trailer?”

They share this secret little smile that’s vaguely annoying, and nobody answers his question. He’s sure he’ll find out eventually, so whatever. He decides he’ll start with the kitchen.

Half an hour later, and he’s wondering what the hell happened to the broom, because he knows for sure they have a broom, he used to sweep all the dirt out the front door on the days he’d get bored with the Drive-In and come over to do the dishes before FP died of food poisoning or something. Ricky finds it out back, propped up against the window to keep it shut. Toni says no wonder it’s so damn dusty in here, we need some air. They pull up all the blinds, open all the windows, leave the door wide open.

Fangs brought a cheap little speaker with him, like he brings everywhere, so there’s a steady stream of background music. Jughead likes Fangs; he’s soft-spoken and good at calculus and is like seventy percent of Sweet Pea’s impulse control, so having him around when Sweet Pea’s here is a blessing from heaven itself. He also has a good taste in music, which, after living with Archie for a solid few months and also being his best friend since they were about seven, is very refreshing.

“Do you even own a vacuum?” Toni asks from somewhere in the bedroom.

“Can you find a vacuum?” he asks.

“No.”

“Oh. I thought I put it in the back of the closet.”

A bit of shuffling around; Sweet Pea drops something in the other room. “This is the oldest fucking vacuum I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m poor, Toni,” he says, and he hears her muffled laughter through the wall.

“Is this duct tape? How is this staying together?”

“A whole lot of willpower.”

He dusts the cabinets while Toni vacuums the bedroom. Sweet Pea and Fangs took the living room, because Fangs was the only one brave enough to even think about cleaning the couch and he wasn’t gonna do it alone. Ricky’s outside somewhere, hanging the bedsheets out to get some air before they go to the laundromat.

(“I don’t have the change for laundry right now,” Jughead had said.

“It’s cool,” Ricky had replied, and that had been that.)

He comes back in for the pillow cases, sitting propped against the front door frame while he dusts them off, humming along to whatever song is playing right now. _You Shook Me All Night Long,_ Jughead notices vaguely, and snorts.

“You making fun of me?” Ricky asks, but he’s smiling.

“No,” Jughead says anyways, “My dad loves this song.

“Yeah?” Fangs asks from where he’s cleaning the window above the couch.

“Yeah. Used to sing it when he was drunk and talking about Mr A.”

“The guy he took to prom in senior year?”

“That's the one.”

“Oh yeah, he helped fixed my truck last month,” Ricky remembers.

“His eyes weren’t all that fuckin twinkly,” Sweet Pea chimes in, because he’s always got something to say, “Not like FP used to write soliloquies about.”

“He really did tell that story all the time,” Jughead says in a vague kind of awe.

“Personally,” Toni says, slipping in through the kitchen, “my favorite is the junior year, post-homecoming game party, where they both got blasted and FP’s high school boyfriend climbed out onto the roof and almost fell off before anyone found him.”

“Said he just wanted to swim but couldn’t find the stairs,” Jughead adds, smiling a little, “So he decided to just jump into it.”

“Almost gave your poor dad a heart attack,” Toni laughs, “He always got real happy when he told that story.”

“I like the prom one,” Ricky says, before the mood can drop.

“Why?” Sweet Pea asks in disdain.

Ricky shrugs. “It’s all sappy and romantic and shit. It’s cute.”

“It’s more than I ever needed to know about his high school dating life. I’ll never forget the make-out in the woods one.”

There’s a moment of silence. The lyrics float through the air: _made a meal out of me and came back for more, had to cool me down to take another round—_

“Can we please change the song?” Jughead asks. Fangs laughs, but but does what he’s asked.

Another half an hour and the kitchen is done, the bedroom is clean, the bathroom hasn’t been touched yet, nobody’s dared to open the bedroom closet, and they're all hungry. Fangs brought snacks, because Fangs is a saint, and Toni brought sodas that she’d popped in the fridge before they started cleaning.

Jughead’s halfway through a bag of Cheetos and  _Pineapple Skies_  when Ricky gasps from the living room. “Yo!” he calls, “I found the remote!”

“Holy _shit_ , for real?” Sweet Pea asks.

“For real,” he holds up that stupid stupid TV remote like it’s a championship trophy.

“Where?” Jughead asks.

Ricky shrugs, “It was just under the couch.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Sweet Pea says, “I just looked under there.”

“Obviously you didn’t look hard enough,” Jughead says, and Sweet Pea frowns, but he’s not actually annoyed.

He pulled out his stupid fucking switchblade and pops the lid off his soda can, and gives the same smug look, like it’s the coolest shit in the world, which. It’s still not.

“You’re gonna cut your own finger off someday,” he says instead of telling him so.

Sweet Pea just grins. Seems to remember something halfway through his first sip, and reaches into his pocket. He tosses something at him, which Jughead just barely manages to catch. He opens his fist, and looks down to see a quarter.

“Twenty five cents,” Sweet Pea says. That, inexplicably, helps press back the vague anxiety about his dad’s trial that’s been building in his chest. Fucking Sweet Pea.

“I knew you had a quarter,” Jughead says, and Sweet Pea laughs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwAib6LosM) is the song they’re listening to at the end (ao3 didn’t let me link it in the story?)
> 
> fangs has the best music taste and sweet pea's probably sucks. those are just the facts.
> 
> thanks for reading my self indulgent mess, drop a comment to get me through the coming weeks bc they are gonna be Rough


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